


The Other Side of the Door

by summerstorm



Category: Glee, Sky High (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-07
Updated: 2009-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-05 09:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerstorm/pseuds/summerstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Huge spoilers for Walk Like Rain. I recommend you read that one first.</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Other Side of the Door

**Author's Note:**

> Huge spoilers for Walk Like Rain. I recommend you read that one first.

Maybe it was her personality all along, or maybe it was the rich, bubbly mother and the emotionally absent father who only ever really cared about his job, but Santana always found comfort in the fact that she was Santana Lopez, top of the social hierarchy at Sky High, body multiplier, honorary cheerleader, head or co-head of any and all committees she considered pivotal to maintaining her degree of popularity, and occasional party hostess. She was hot, she was smart, she had rhythm. There may have been two blondes around the top with her, but there was only one Santana, intentional copies aside, and every morning, in the mirror, Santana smirked at herself and started listing off her daily goals in her head.

When it happens, it's the mirror part of the routine that gives it away.

She really didn't think much of the situation the other day, when her dad told her they were going to stay for a few days in a ski resort in Minnesota that belonged to Countess Crusade's—or Carla Fabray's, as he liked to address her—lawyer. Santana was well aware that being in opposite sides of court didn't mean two people couldn't get along outside of it. She didn't even think much of the fact that Carla Fabray herself was spending her two weeks of parole around her prosecutor—clearly she needed some sort of security to trail after her, and Santana's dad had worked against her for years, so he knew how to handle her.

She wasn't even scared of sharing a cabin with a supervillain, because Carla had always been exceptionally nice to her during hearings—when Santana's babysitter wasn't available and her mom was on a business trip and her dad just had to take her to work—and also, Carla was a technopath, which wasn't much of a kill-you-when-the-mood-strikes power, plus her use of it would send an alarm to the S(pecial)FBI anyway.

So she actually had fun and perfected her skiing skills and was pretty happy when Carla Fabray offered to take her clubbing last night and her father didn't object or try to tag along. Carla even let her drink to her heart's content and held her hair while she vomited in the ladies' room. Santana knew Carla had never been much of a mother to Quinn, but maybe it was just because she didn't know how to raise a kid, not because she was a heartless bitch incapable of caring about anyone. Carla definitely seemed to care about Santana, and had an easier time of interacting with her because Santana wasn't her responsibility.

Except then she wakes up and stumbles into the bathroom and looks in the mirror and not only does she look forty years old, she is _white_. Not a trace of her tan in sight. And she'd scream, she would, except she doesn't get the chance to before two officers are dragging her out of the room and collecting her few belongings—not Santana's, no, _Carla Fabray's_—and holding her head into an SUV with aircraft propellers.

"What are you doing, you have the wrong person, I'm not—I'm _Santana Lopez_, this is not my body, something happened last night—" she attempts, earnest, but they just say, "Yeah, yeah, we've heard all this before," and even then Santana insists and keeps looking back and looking back and her dad just hugs her body tighter like he's never ever bothered to hold _her_ and before she knows it she's waking up on a narrow bunk bed in a cell, and a part of her is only thankful this is hero jail and not a prison where the inmates actually know how to use their body strength.

*

Over the first month, there are four meetings with Carla's defense attorney, and nothing comes out of them. She manages to talk to her dad once, but he doesn't believe her, and Santana can't really blame him—this is a part of his job, not letting criminals walk all over him.

But Carla Fabray has a reputation, and sometimes the way for Santana Lopez to be her own person is to pretend to be somebody else.

If everything else fails, at least she'll have enough material for an autobiography—it's probably too much to hope law enforcement will do their job and get everything sorted out, but Carla's been waiting here for years, and Santana doesn't think it will take long for Countess Crusade to resurface.

Besides, she has prison bitches, which isn't as wrong or gritty as it sounds, and between that and how hi-tech and safe hero imprisonment has become in the past few years, her life here feels a lot like high school.

*

She's so busy keeping her denial levels up and herself sane it takes her a whole two months to wonder how the hell Carla—Countess Crusade, whatever, clearly Carla's just as evil—managed to swap bodies with her without alerting the police to her ministrations.

And then she thinks, hey, Carla and Santana's dad, they used to be friends. They had the hugest fallout in the history of fallouts, but Carla's never called him Henry or Mr. Lopez unless they were in court—she always called him Shaman.

Santana knows there's a lot she doesn't know about her dad, but her dad always told her she got into the law business because he never had a power, and people with no powers get no hero nicknames. And Santana knows Carla built a device to steal powers from people, and then, it's easy to assume she got the bodyswitching from her dad, and put two and two together.

Sure, maybe the result she needs is a five and her conclusions only reach a four, but if the case weren't closed and someone deigned to listen to her, she would be a fucking hero.

*

When she's halfway through watching Titanic with her 90s cinema club and opens her eyes to find herself in a ballroom, she's mostly confused.

And then she spots Brittany and Quinn and _Puck_ and the daughter of Rock Ant and Rapids, and she goes from bewildered to pissed in the span of a vine wrapping tight around her wrists.

*

She understands Brittany, because she's kind of not all that alert, and she sort of understands Quinn, because she's constantly caught up in her own issues, which seem to have snowballed since Santana stopped being there to sit her down and give her a good talking-to whenever she started freaking out about stupid shit, like working as a waitress because her dad thought it would do her good to try something her mother never had, or hanging out with sidekicks, or being _gay_. It's like she's back in the third grade or something.

Her mom's not even at her own Christmas party, but she gets a call from the police and they talk on the phone and decide Santana should stay with Quinn for a few days until she can ditch her business trip, which Santana's more than fine with.

But Puck? She's not forgiving Puck. They may not be dating, but she's not a hooker. He doesn't get to sleep with her and forget how awesome she was, or _why_.

They're making out in an armchair in Quinn's room just two days after the not-even-a-fight at the hotel—and really, that's what Santana spent six months in prison for? Supervillains are so not what they used to be—and she's straddling him, wondering when her body last got laid while he whispers ridiculous crap into her ear.

She balances the balls of her hands on his shoulders to prop herself up and look him right in the face. "You screwed her, didn't you?"

Puck snorts. "Might've," he says, though it sounds like a growl. Santana rolls her eyes. "Aren't you glad I made sure she was treating your body right?

"And you didn't know it wasn't me? I find it hard to believe she knew how to portray me _in bed_."

Puck squints like he's concentrating. He looks dumb. "Now that you mention it, she was kind of dull," he says, "for a supervillain. In hindsight, you know. But you know it's always been hard for me to tell you apart from your duplicates."

So Santana does the only thing she knows will show him: she slaps him right across the face. It's not the first time, because he's a freak and actually likes it, and because the way his head moves when she hits him stretches the muscles of his neck and gives her a gorgeous expanse of skin to look at and lick and nibble at.

Puck groans, his fingers sliding strong and possessive over her ass. "I really should have known," he admits, and Santana smirks and slides a hand over his stretched neck, nails sinking in lightly at the top of his shoulder blades, just enough so he'll feel them and kiss her harder.

It's probably not the best way to reassert she's back home, but this plus shopping with Quinn plus torturing a few freshmen when she gets back to school? She thinks that'll be a good start.


End file.
